Oklahoma City, Oklahoma -- It is the first study of its kind, a study that looks at the effectiveness of programs designed to help those who want out of a gay lifestyle. More than half of those who went into the lifestyle were sexually abused, a finding consistent with other studies. By far the biggest result of the study is that 88 percent of the participants report finding lasting freedom.

Stephen Black is the Executive Director for First Stone Ministries. For more than twenty-five years they have collected data and responses from participants who willingly sought help for same-sex attraction, many who had been sexually abused. Those who remained in counseling for a year or more found the greatest freedom. In all cases, those who participated did so volitionally.

“People are not born gay,” says Black. “This false narrative has been repeated so often that people think it’s true,” A former gay man himself, Black has now been married since 1986. He is most outspoken against the false idea of a “gay Christian” movement. “This is an affront to every man and woman who have been through counseling and found freedom. To tell them they can remain in their sin and still be in good standing with God is directly opposed to what they have personally experienced,” says Black.

Freedom Realized. The author of Freedom Realized (Redemption Press), Black and his colleagues decided to go a step further and make their findings available; showing that change is possible. “No one has ever forced a person under our counseling to seek change,” says Black. “They come willingly and those who stick with the program find lasting freedom. The idea of ‘praying away the gay’ is nothing more than a way to ridicule the life-changing work that God does in the lives of those who seek it.”

Those who came to First Stone Ministries self-identified as being sexually broken (88-92%). “Is it compassionate to leave people in their place of pain?” Black asks rhetorically. The report is not just statistics from some of the 1,200 intact client folders but comments from hundreds of people set free from sexual addition.